The Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority offices. File picture
JOHANNESBURG - Members belonging to the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (Psira) may be the answer to bolstering the police force and helping curb crime in the country.
This was one of the suggestions made by the Independent Policing Union of South Africa (Ipusa) following the gazetting of the new draft regulations published for civilian secretariat comment.
The union said that while they welcomed the new draft regulations aimed at establishing a new council and regulator, as well as providing the minister of police with a host of new functions to protect the country's resources, they were concerned at how the force would manage.
Ipusa president Bethuel Nephtal Nkuna said they were concerned that adding more responsibility to the police to deploy its resources to new environments would only weaken the force, whose resources were already depleted.
"Criminals aren’t only tearing South Africa's critical infrastructure, such as Eskom, the railway, and roads, but also the lives and properties of all South Africans. This is not happening because of a lack of laws, but because of the lack of implementation of the current law due to a shortage of manpower and vehicles.
"They don’t have sufficient manpower to look after their own police stations, which are robbed daily. In addition, the SAPS is losing about 600 firearms per year due to their infrastructure, which is not adequate to protect them."
The organisation suggested, however, that the police minister consider roping in personnel from Psira, as it boasted more than 500,000 members, which would help bolster and enhance the service’s capacity to protect the government's critical infrastructure through the new draft regulations, as they did with National Key Points.
"The Airports Company of South Africa is a perfect example. There should be proper co-ordination between these two departments. If the department considers going ahead with this legislation, we propose that security companies be considered to guard this infrastructure."